Part 10

“Is the talking of birds due to mental or physical causes?” is a question often asked. In the first place, no doubt, it is due to the disposition of the bird. Some parrots and cockatoos never learn to talk, though their organs of speech differ in no way from those of others that do. They seem to be without the imitative bias, like the hawks which have curved beaks and thick tongues, but are equally silent. But where the disposition to mimic is present, physical causes limit or widen the bird’s powers. Parrots and the crow tribe are both imitative, but the parrots’ beaks and tongues are more suited for imitating human speech, just as the raven, with his high-arched beak and big throat excels the jay. Other birds with still less suitable organs, such as the sedge-warbler, though excellent mimics, cannot reproduce human speech at all. There seems no reason why parrots, if they would breed in confinement, should not teach their accomplishments to their young ones, as the canaries have done theirs. Perhaps in time the experiment may be made.

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ELEPHANT LIFE IN ENGLAND

THE strangely artificial revival of elephant life in the countries north of the Mediterranean, and in districts where the bones of the fossil species show that they once lived and flourished naturally, is yearly more remarkable. The European elephant herd in the present year numbers one hundred and thirteen, or about thirty less than the annual catch in the keddahs of the Indian Government. Their health seems quite independent of climate, to judge from the countries in which they are kept, often with very rough provision against the chances and changes of weather. Russia owns eighteen, Sweden and Norway four, France and Belgium ten each, seven of which are in the great travelling menagerie of the Lockharts, which migrates to and fro across the Franco-Belgian frontier; Germany has thirty-four, and England about the same number; Holland has eight, and Italy two.

The British stock is at present supplied almost entirely from Burmah. There only in the East elephants are bred in a half-wild state and not caught in the heddahs. They are brought over to Europe when quite young, and are now so cheap that any one who pleases may become the owner of a sober, well-behaved little elephant from four to five feet high, delivered at the docks, for from £105 to £120, or not more than the average price paid for first-class shire-horses. Their subsequent development depends mainly upon their daily treatment. In those which spend their lives at ease in the elephant palaces at the Zoological Gardens the rate of growth is surprising, and they soon develop into magnificent animals, not surpassed in size by the finest creatures in the stables of Indian rajahs. The pair of Indian elephants now in the Gardens are already nine feet and ten feet high at the shoulder respectively, though when they reached the Gardens in 1876 they were hardly bigger than a Shetland pony. But the greater number of English elephants spend their time as hard-working members of the large circuses and travelling menageries, and lead a wandering, homeless life, in curious contrast to the comfort which surrounds the fortunate inmates of the gardens of learned societies. Their deliberate movements mask a wakeful self-possession which hardly ever deserts them, and whether marching by the cornfields on the open downs, or through the streets of a manufacturing town, the elephant never misses a chance of levying contributions of food on the road. “Where didst thou teach thy elephant that trick?” says Petersen Sahib, in Mr. Rudyard Kipling’s charming tale of the elephant dance, when the animal holds the mahout’s son aloft in its trunk. “Was it to help thee to steal green corn from the roof when the ears are put out to dry?” “Not green corn, Protector of the Poor-melons,” says little Toomai.

In England the elephant is not an accomplice, but helps himself freely in the back streets of the towns, up which he is usually taken, to avoid difficulties with the urban police. He has ever a sharp eye for an open window or door, and many a batch of new loaves smoking on the dresser or bunch of vegetables intended for the mid-day dinner, is extracted through the window, before the good woman, who is admiring the procession at the door, has time to rush back to the rescue. At Sanger’s repository last year a fine gilded car came back for repairs. The body of the car had been filled with loaves of bread on Saturday night and then locked up. An elephant smelt the bread, and not being able to open the lock, turned the whole car over to see if it would open in that way, to the serious damage of the ornamental upper works. The clever picture of the “Disputed Toll,” by Charlton Adams, in which an elephant is painted breaking open a turnpike-gate, records an amusing incident of elephant travel which occurred many years ago outside the pretty little town of Sidmouth in South Devon. Van Ambrugh’s show was expected, and the turnpike keeper locked the gate and demanded toll, not only for the cars but for the animals. The elephant was leading the way, and after much fruitless argument, its keeper, slipping through the turnstile for foot-passengers, said to the elephant, “Come along, Fido,” and the animal at once lifted the gate off its hinges and walked through. Cool and sagacious on the march, they seem also thoroughly to enjoy the tinsel and trappings, the music of the brass band, the lights, noise, and crowd of an evening show. Perhaps there is something in this which recalls to them memories of the “gorgeous East.” Take for instance the annual “World’s Fair” at the Agricultural Hall, which a Hindoo would describe as a very fine tumasha, and in which no one but an Oriental, a British working-man, or an elephant, could keep his brains clear for half-an-hour. Two large steam “round-abouts” at either end of the hall, grinding a different tune with an engine of ten-horse power, form only a portion of the bewildering attractions of this Palace of Delight. Opposite each of these machines, at the time of the writer’s last visit, was stalled a small Indian elephant, cool, collected, and sagacious, his business mind wholly intent on raising contributions from the public. One occupied a compartment in the centre of what was magnificently described as the “Mammoth Wild Animal Congregation.” He was a very little mammoth, not five feet high, black and bristly, supported on one side by a Persian goat and a kangaroo, and on the other by a couple of llamas. In front stood a stall of cakes, and to every visitor who came past the elephant pointed out the biscuit pile, his trunk maintaining a line true as the needle to the Pole, while his head and eye followed the movements of the passer-by. When quite neglected and alone, he tried to attract attention by dancing a kind of double-shuffle to the tune of the “round-about.”

Some one ventured to give a biscuit to the unfortunate goat, its neighbour. The elephant dexterously twisted it from between the nibbling lips of the goat, and at once mounted guard to prevent any such diversion of its dues again. With ears cocked and eye alert, he held his trunk stretched out a few inches above the goat’s head, taking it away for a moment to receive offerings tendered elsewhere, but switching it back to the suspected quarter the moment the dainty was swallowed.

Elephants suffer from nervousness, and occasionally from unreasoning panic, in England, just as they do in India. A windmill has been known to cause them to jib like a horse, and a large and very tame female Indian elephant at the Zoological Gardens actually died of fright, caused by a thunderstorm in the summer of 1855. She was out at exercise, when a violent and reverberant peal of thunder caused her to break away from her keeper. When caught she was found to be in a pitiable state of terror, shaking and trembling with violent spasmodic twitchings of the whole body. When led back to her stable she continued to show unmistakable symptoms of shock and collapse. In a short time she lay down, and after a few days died, in spite of the anxious and skilled attention which she received from the first.

Minor instances of panic are not uncommon, but it is not often that the English-trained animal loses his head so as to be a source of danger to the public, as so frequently happens in India. This is partly because they seldom travel alone. In Mr. Sanger’s menagerie, for instance, the elephants are led when on the march by an old chestnut thoroughbred, known as the “jumping horse,” from his feat of clearing six five-barred gates in succession. It was when out at exercise without its usual companion that one of these elephants bolted at Highbury last September, and spent an afternoon in rambling about the suburbs of North London. The damage done by the animal was greatly exaggerated, so far as the writer could judge after a visit to the scene of its exploits. The elephant was drinking from a water-trough just opposite Finsbury Park, when it took fright at the sudden ringing of a tram-car bell. Pursued by boys and policemen, it ran through the Park and down a street near the lower entrance. Seeing a large wooden gate, like that which leads to its own yard at Tottenham, it burst it open, and found itself in a labyrinth of small sheds and wooden stables at the back of some shops. Threading its way through these with wonderful agility, it ultimately arrived in a cul de sac in the yard at the back of a fishmonger’s shop. Having thrown off its pursuers by this manœuvre, the elephant proceeded to make itself as much at home as circumstances permitted. It first kicked into quiet a collie dog which had resented its intrusion. Next it picked up its kennel and pitched it over the garden wall. Then cautiously approaching the kitchen door, it looked in to see if any provisions were lying within reach. Meantime the fishmonger, who was taking a nap on his sofa, was apprised that there was an elephant in his back-yard. Trespass, whether by man or beast, is a thing no British house-holder can put up with; so the fishmonger took down his whip and went to turn it “off his premises.” “Jim” was at that moment looking in at the door, and elephant and fishmonger met on the threshold. Victory lay with the latter, but only to a limited extent. For the elephant, still bent on finding provender, broke in the door of the stable in which the tradesman kept his pony. The door was only six and a half feet high, and the elephant more than eight. But it stepped in, and being familiar with the economy of a stable, looked for the corn-bin. This found, it emptied the whole of the contents on the floor, and soon ate up a bushel of oats. This was not to be borne; so the plucky fishmonger determined to “catch” the robber when it emerged from the stable. This it did rather sooner than it had intended, as the pony, frightened at its strange visitor, avenged the collie by kicking the elephant’s ribs. Outside, the indignant fishmonger and his man had barred the passage by drawing a light van across it, and, armed with whips, mounted guard on the other side of the barricade. Jim on his part took a long drink out of a small slate water-tank which stood near, and having refreshed the inner elephant with food and drink, surveyed the situation at his leisure. Seeing no other way out of the yard than that by which he had entered, he walked up, and with his head upset the van, and brushing past the garrison and through the crowd outside the gates, resumed his rambles in the streets. When captured, it was long past seven o’clock, and the animal was then well beyond the river Lea. No one was hurt by the elephant, and beyond the wanton destruction of a small shed belonging to a fishmonger, which it mischievously broke into pieces the size of barrel staves, and an unfortunate rush through five garden walls in a rather awkward place in Highbury Terrace, it did little harm to property. Next day it was seen by the writer, apparently none the worse for its adventures, though a violent scolding administered by the keeper’s wife caused it obvious uneasiness. It could hardly swallow the hay which it was eating, but taking it from its mouth, rubbed its knees with it, turning its head away, and exhibiting signs of the utmost penitence and confusion.

African elephants are now very scarce in this country. This is due partly to the total blockade by the Dervish power at Khartoum of the ancient trade-route down the river. At present there are only seven left in Europe; of these one is in the London Zoological Gardens, one at Manchester, and one in Wombwell’s travelling menagerie. But except to complete the collections of learned societies, the African is far less in demand than formerly. The elephant trade exists mainly to supply performing animals for the circuses, and the African is not popular with circus owners, or with their keepers or trainers. This is strange, because it was in the Roman circus that the African elephant first became a popular favourite in Europe. Though the first war-elephants captured by the legions were baited to death in the arena, the later arrivals appealed just as much to the good-nature of the populus Romanus as do their descendants to the British public. This fact suggests one of the few humorous remarks which can safely be credited to a Roman; and in keeping with the rarity of the event the joke was made by almost the greatest of all Romans, Caius Octavius Augustus, Emperor, Proconsul, Prince of the Senate, and Pontifex Maximus. One of the humbler Quirites, anxious to present a petition, was so fortunate as to escape the eye of the lictors and to catch that of the Emperor, who graciously stretched out his hand for the document which he saw lurking beneath the folds of the citizen’s gown. Flustered at the sudden chance of royal protection, he pushed his scroll towards the outstretched hand, then shrunk back before the thought of almost personal contact with the human embodiment of power. “Come, man,” said Augustus, “do you think you are giving a penny to the elephant?” “Putasne te assem elephanto dare?”

To-day, though the public are ready to make the biggest elephant their greatest favourite, as in the case of the African “Jumbo,” the keepers and trainers have little to say in favour of his kindred. Their opinion seems almost as unanimous as it is hostile. At the Zoo it is said that the Africans are “stupid,” and therefore dangerous. For example, supposing an Indian elephant to be backing towards the wall, and so in danger of crushing its attendants, a push or a slap on its huge thigh will instantly be understood as a hint to move forwards, or to stop. The less careful African would probably take no notice of the warning, and the man must either slip on one side or be crushed. The trainer alleges that they have bad memories. This makes them uncertain performers in the ring. They will learn a few tricks without difficulty; but when called upon to show off in public, they are extremely likely to refuse their parts, and either to stand still, or bolt to their stable. There seems also to be a general feeling among circus attendants that they are unsafe. The fine young African elephant now at the Zoological Gardens has given far more trouble to its keepers than the two large Indian specimens during the far longer period of their sojourn in Regent’s Park. When quite a baby its obstinacy was as marked as their docility. The Indian pair would walk round the grounds with their keeper between them, the man placing a hand on each of their backs, and the two solemn little fellows walking in step on either side. The African would not even take the bath which most elephants look upon as one of their greatest treats in hot weather. He roared, and kicked, and made such a determined resistance that it was necessary to rig up a block and tackle, and haul him into the water. When there he sulked, and seemed prepared to undergo the fate of drowning rather than the humiliation of obedience. The recollection that you may bring a horse to the water but cannot make him drink, hardly expresses the feelings of his keepers when they realized that the tackle which is sufficient to haul an elephant into the water may be unsuited for hauling him out. Ultimately the Chinaman’s recipe for driving a pig—“If you no can pushee, no pullee, then try plenty stick,” was adopted with success. The African elephant’s “uncertainty” has one redeeming feature. It may shy or jib on one day, and get the better of its keeper for an hour or more, but he does not necessarily therefore lose prestige in the eyes of the animal, and can assert his authority next day unimpaired. An Indian elephant, if once the master in a deliberate act of disobedience, loses from that moment all respect for the man whom it has worsted. Inferiority in “parlour tricks,” and in comparative docility, does not excuse the strange neglect which the native species receives as a beast of burden suited for the work of African pioneering. Dr. Sclater, writing from the offices of the Zoological Society in Hanover Square, says that there have been African elephants in the Gardens of the Society for nearly twenty years, and that in his opinion they are quite as intelligent as those of the Indian species, though perhaps not quite so docile. He suggests that a keddah of Indian elephants and their attendants should be transported to the East African coast, and that the Indian elephants should be used to capture and tame their African brethren. General Gordon, shortly before the disaster at Khartoum, wrote to Dr. Sclater advocating the employment of the elephant in Africa, and making inquiries as to its possibility. The size which the African elephant will attain under favourable conditions in this country is well illustrated by the case of “Jumbo.” When this elephant came to the Gardens he was about four feet high and weighed 700 lbs. At first he was troublesome, but after a short time became perfectly manageable, and grew very rapidly. This was attributed by Mr. Bartlett, in his remarks on a paper read before the Society of Arts in 1884, by Colonel Sanderson, to good food, and a daily bath in hot weather. In sixteen years he grew from four feet to eleven feet in height. By that time he was probably twenty-three years old. An elephant does not reach its prime till thirty-five, and Jumbo increased another ton after a year at Barnum’s; he was therefore probably not full grown at the time of his lamented death.

The reasons for his sale were not very clearly stated at the time of his transfer. The cause of sale, in the case of any animal, is never a point on which the vendor is anxious to dwell. “Sold for no fault, but solely because the owner is giving up hunting,” is the favourite formula at Tattersall’s; and an elephant which is leaving a zoological garden to appear in a monster circus might be supposed to be disqualified for service in the latter, if it possessed any vice which made it an undesirable inmate of the former. The inference is more apparent than real; for the harder work and exercise at Barnum’s could hardly fail to make a change in the impressionable elephant temperament. But a pleasing mystery surrounded the “deal.” The shrewd sense of Barnum himself nursed the growing excitement on both sides of the Atlantic with a genial dexterity which will ever be considered a masterpiece of management among the illustrious exhibitors of the future. The Society, on their side, kept their own counsel, and the sale of the big elephant was briefly alluded to in the report as “made for satisfactory reasons given by the responsible executive.” Neither did the price received figure as a separate item in the receipts. But as the amount credited to “Garden sales” exceeded that of the previous year by about £1800, we may assume that the sum paid by Mr. Barnum was well within that limit. A good authority informs the writer that the net payment was £1000. Meantime the “Jumbo boom” was immensely profitable to the Society’s revenue. The fees paid for admission to the Gardens rose by £5500 in the year, an increase which the Secretary’s report attributes to the “great interest taken by the public in the removal of a favourite animal.” The splendid new Reptile House, with its unrivalled facilities for observing the habits of the snakes, lizards, and alligators, was the result of this most welcome windfall. It was in fact the legacy of the African elephant to the Zoo.

The facts as to Jumbo’s state of mind were afterwards clearly given by Mr. Bartlett. During the last years of his life in the Gardens he became at times very excited, and terrified every one who came near him except his keeper Scott, who had extraordinary control over him. “Scott,” added Mr. Bartlett, “was a very curious man himself, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he could be persuaded to allow another man to assist him in the management of the huge animal. It was feared that if Scott fell ill, or were injured by the elephant, he would be entirely unmanageable, for no other man dared go near him in his house, though when out at exercise he was perfectly quiet. At night, however, he would tear about and almost shake the house down, and became such a source of trouble that the Council decided to part with him.”

He was quite tractable in Barnum’s show, and became the father of two little elephants. Scott went with him, and after his death in a collision with a locomotive, was offered the charge of a large stud of elephants which was shown afterwards at Olympia. But his sturdy independence rebelled against the wearing of “costume,” which Barnum’s feeling for the proprieties of the arena enjoined. Faithful to his old charge he mounted guard over the stuffed Jumbo, and preserved his hide from the knives of relic-hunting visitors.

In conclusion we may contrast the knowledge and skill shown in the management of Jumbo at a critical time, with the fate of an elephant which exhibited much the same symptoms, in the Liverpool Zoological Gardens, in 1848, before the present race of English elephant-keepers had been trained to their work. This elephant, like Jumbo, was said to be the finest in Europe. It cost £800 eleven years before its death, and was said to be then worth £1000. It had already killed one keeper, accidentally, as it was thought, but not long afterwards it struck down and crushed a second. Such was the panic of the owners, that two six-pounder cannon were bought from the Albert Docks, and set loaded opposite to the elephant’s house, in case it should succeed in escaping. As it remained quiet, two ounces of prussic acid and twenty-five grains of aconite were given to it in its food. As the poison did not seem to take effect, thirty men from the 52nd Regiment were ordered to shoot it. The first fifteen delivered their fire, and as the creature did not fall the next squad discharged their muskets, and the elephant sank dead with thirty bullets in his body, together with enough poison to kill a ship’s company.

It may fairly be claimed that we have made some progress in the management of the elephant in England, since the days when the owner of such a valuable animal was not only incapable of keeping it with safety, but ignorant of the means to kill it humanely. The average duration of their life in this country is now probably well over fifty years; and though this does not contrast favourably with the eighty years of the Indian studs, there is every prospect that it will increase. The office of mahout promises to become almost as hereditary here as in India; and while traditions of elephant management are handed down from one generation of keepers to another, so it is noticed that the new and acquired habits practised by the more experienced and sagacious animals are observed and copied by the young arrivals. The elephant is being slowly Europeanized.

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WANTED—A NEW MEAT.

THE lack of variety in those meats which, whether flesh or fowl, must always form the ground-work and basis of an English bill-of-fare, is a want keenly felt, but most difficult to remedy. To judge from the list of fresh food which the improved transport of the last few years has made available for the London dinner-table, a natural inference would be that, so far as novelty has been studied, we had made provision, not for man as humanized by Schools of Cookery, but for a race of fruit-eating apes. We have a dozen new fruits, shaddocks, limes, custard-apples, bananas, pines, Italian figs, pomegranates, lichees, ground-nuts, gourds, water-melons, and avocado pears. But among the thousands of tons of foreign game imported yearly, there is hardly a beast or bird which may not be had in better quality and condition at home, except the prairie-bird and the quail; for those canvas-backed ducks which escape the keen search of the New York dealers and find their way across the Atlantic, alight only on the tables of City Companies and millionaires, like the caladrus of old, that appeared only at the deaths of kings. Yet there are probably twenty people in this country who have eaten canvas-backed duck for one who has ever tasted swan, or rather cygnet, the finest water-fowl for the table alike in size and flavour, a bird easy to rear, most prolific, rivalling even the breast of a teal, without the fatal drawback of that excellent little bird, that no one has ever been able to get enough of it. Even now, though so neglected by the world, swans may be had from the Norwich Swan-Pit for £2 each. They weigh some sixteen pounds, and with them is forwarded an ancient recipe for cooking them—“done into rhyme by a Person of Quality.”

Another “fowl” which was once reserved for the tables of kings, and is now hardly thought good enough for aldermen, is the peacock. What roast swan is to roast goose, such is roast peacock to roast turkey. Many owners of country houses who keep peacocks and let them run wild and nest in their woods and shrubberies, take little trouble either to fatten or cook the pea-chicks. If they did, they would perhaps take more pains to rear these birds for the table. The meat is very white, and of exceedingly fine and close grain, and has the true game-flavour, with none of the stringiness of the common turkey. The American wild turkey is, however, an even finer bird for the table than the peacock. Those which appear in the poulterers’ shops of London generally arrive in such bad condition from careless packing and refrigerating, that they are inferior to the domestic bird. But when allowed to run wild and nest in English woods, as is done on some estates, on its merits, and apart from any tricks of cookery, it is perhaps the very best land-bird that is available for food. The game-flavour is not too pronounced, but gives a character to the whole which is altogether absent in the tame black turkeys of the farmyard.

But flesh, and not fowl, is what is mainly desired to widen the possibilities of the dinner-table. Fatted swans, or peacocks, or American turkeys might be increased and multiplied without affording more than an occasional relief to the monotony of the menu and the brain-searching of housekeepers. What is wanted is some new and large animal, whose flesh has a character of its own which would readily distinguish it from beef or mutton, and an excellence which shall make it independent of any special treatment in cooking,—something which shall combine the game-flavour with the substantial solidity of a leg of mutton. An increase in the quantity of venison reared in this country naturally suggests itself; and it is not impossible that, in neglecting the produce of our deer-parks, we are hardly less careless than in losing sight of the culinary possibilities of the swannery. Good doe-venison may be bought in the neighbourhood of some large parks at a much lower price than mutton; and the quantity of first-class venison which finds its way to London is surprisingly little, considering the number of parks and private herds in the country. It is objected that deer can never pay to fat for food, because the annual growth of their horns reduces them so much in condition as for a time to make the venison worthless. But this applies only to the bucks; stags might be kept like bullocks, and doe-venison might still be remunerative. As early as 1740, an enterprising Jersey squire, of the name of Chevallier, who had succeeded to an estate in Suffolk—whose descendants still constantly sit in Parliament—had formed a small park for fattening deer and sending them up to London. His accounts of the cost and profits of the enterprise are still preserved, and he abandoned the scheme, not from difficulties encountered in fattening or selling the deer, but because of the uncertainty of carriage to London. Venison, even when reared under the present unscientific method, or rather want of method, varies greatly in quality, that from certain parks being much superior to that grown on less suitable pasture; and it is not too much to hope that, if bred and fattened solely for the table, venison would be in demand as something more than an occasional luxury.

But swan, peacock, and venison are, after all, only revivals of the old bill-of-fare which was available in the households of Old England. To find a new meat, we must take stock of the world’s resources of animal food, and inquire, after due survey, if there does not still exist some neglected quadruped which will furnish what we seek. Roughly speaking, our main supply of animal food is drawn either from the rodents, the ruminants, or the pachyderms,—represented by the rabbit, the ox or sheep, and the pig. To vary the supply at our disposal, we shall probably not be able to go beyond these limits; for the general experience of civilized man has already pronounced judgment on the question, and science supports the verdict. It is no good to eat a wolf; for the wolf has already got the benefit of eating the lamb, and left no surplus for us. Of the three great tribes, the rodents may be dismissed from our search; for those that are not already used as food are either too small to be useful, as the lemming or the guinea-pig, or too repulsive in appearance, like the capybara, or in habits, like the rat. Of the pachyderms, we find only one which is domesticated for food—the dear, familiar Berkshire or Yorkshire piggie. The larger pachyderms are too big; the smaller, like the peccary, too savage; the wart-hog and other African varieties too repulsive. Clearly, then, we must have resource to the list of ruminants if we are to find one to add to the British bill-of-fare. At first, the choice seems wide enough. It embraces all the deer-tribe, the wild sheep and antelopes, goats and ibexes, which are numerous; but they all possess a rank and disagreeable flavour, which must prevent their coming into the list of first-class food. The possibility of extending the supply of venison we have already considered. The wild sheep would probably differ so little in flavour from mutton as to make it hardly worth while to domesticate them, though those of the Himalaya will breed freely in confinement. The antelopes and wild oxen, therefore, alone remain, and it is among their number that the animal wanted must be found, if it is to be found at all. If the accounts of African hunters are reliable, the venison obtained from the larger kinds of antelope found in South and Central Africa is really excellent, that of the koodoo, the oryx, and the eland being the best. Perhaps the highest modern authority on the subject is the opinion of Lord Randolph Churchill. Those who read of and sympathized with his account of his sufferings under the cuisine of the Cape steamers, must have marked with a feeling of relief, that in his letters to the Daily Graphic he confessed to having made an excellent supper on stewed roan antelope. His verdict on the eland has not been given, but its flesh is said to surpass that of all other antelopes by as much as Welsh mutton surpasses Lincolnshire “teg.” Ten educated palates have pronounced it “peculiarly excellent, having in addition the valuable property of being tender immediately after the animal is killed, which makes it much appreciated in Central Africa, where the meat is usually tough and dry.”

In addition to the quality of the meat, the eland has the additional recommendation of large size. A full-grown eland is as large as a two-year-old shorthorn, and has far more the appearance of a high-bred Indian bullock than of an antelope. Its horns are short and straight, pointing backwards, and it has a dewlap like an ox. It can live on the hardest fare, and soon grows fat on good pasture. Best of all, it becomes quite tame, and is easily acclimatized.

When Lord Derby, the President of the Zoological Society, died in 1851, he directed that his herd of five elands at Knowsley should be given to the Society for use in their menagerie. They multiplied fast, and six fawns were produced between 1851 and 1855, and it was found that at two years old they stood thirteen hands at the shoulder. The protection necessary was not more than that usual in fattening fine cattle, and the Society resolved to sell their fawns for the experiment of acclimatization in English parks. Lord Hill bought a young male and two females for his large park at Hawkstone; but according to Whitaker’s Deer-Parks of England, none of these survive. The Marquis of Breadalbane also bought three. In 1861, twenty-one calves had been born in the Zoological Gardens since Lord Derby’s gift ten years before, and there is still the nucleus of a herd of their descendants at the Zoo, though their size and stamina is diminished by inter-breeding. It does not appear that eland breeding is now followed with much enthusiasm by the owners of large parks and chases, partly, no doubt, because the “shorthorn mania” was for a time such an absorbing pursuit among country gentlemen as to leave no thoughts for any other experiments.

It seems a waste of the resources of nature to allow these fine animals to be exterminated, as they soon will be, in our new African empire. The argument, that because South African negroes have not tamed them, we should not attempt to do it, is of little force. The African keeps cows to give milk; meat was supplied in inexhaustible quantities by the wild antelopes and other game, and with far less trouble than domesticated animals give, until the white man with guns destroyed them. We are too apt to forget that England owes the best of her trees, vegetables, and animals to other countries. All are now so good that we are prone to believe that neither can be added to or improved. Perhaps Admiral Rous was right when he declared that it made him “simply sick” when an Arab cross was proposed for our English thoroughbreds. But why should we not save the eland, the harness antelope, and the koodoo, and other large African species from extermination? America has almost allowed the bison to perish. Shall we not take warning, and preserve for our own use the splendid African antelopes, which, within the memory of man, were a thousand times more numerous than they are to-day?

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AN EXPERIMENT IN ANIMAL PRESERVATION.

WHEN the founders of our Zoological Gardens formed plans for acclimatizing foreign animals in England, they could scarcely have imagined that the Gardens might form almost the last preserve of animals then living in enormous numbers in America. Yet it is not beyond the limits of possibility, that our Zoological Gardens may within a few years contain the last living specimens of the American bison. It is said that thirty of the surviving herd in Yellowstone Park were recently killed by poachers for the sake of their hides and horns, and the chances of their survival in the United States are thus further diminished. If they do not disappear altogether, it will be in a great degree due to an experiment in the preservation of wild animals and natural scenery, undertaken by a wealthy American, Mr. Austin Corbin.